"It doesn't make economic sense, it doesn't make political sense, it doesn't make historical sense. Other than that, it's a good idea."
- Paul Gillies, former Vermont Deputy Secretary of State, historian and lawyer

Friday, March 2, 2007

Second Vermont Republic Hid Polling Specs Data

For those of you who are still interested in learning anything more about the nature of the Second Vermont Republic leadership and some of their followers, I give you the 2006 Vermonter Poll questions along with the answers available to respondents:

Vermont Citizens’ Opinions Regarding Secession

Center for Rural StudiesMay 2006

Methods

The data used in this report were collected by the Center for Rural Studies at the University of Vermont as part of the annual “Vermonter Poll.”

The survey was conducted between the hours of 4:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. beginning on February 13, 2006 and ending on March 2, 2006. The telephone polling was conducted from the University of Vermont using computer-aided telephone interviewing (CATI).

The sample for the poll was drawn through random digit dialing and used all of the telephone exchanges in the state of Vermont as the sampling frame. Only Vermont residents over the age of eighteen were interviewed. The poll included questions on a variety of issues related to public policy in the state of Vermont.

There were 611 respondents to the 2006 Vermonter Poll (Version II). The results ased on a group of this size have a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percent at a confidence interval of 95 percent.

Table 1

"Yes or no; has the federal government become unresponsive to the people of Vermont?"

This announcement has been deleted from the SVR site at sometime in the past. &nbspWhy? &nbsp(Note to SVR: &nbspDon't bother reloading the page to cover your tracks. &nbspThe page as it shows today has been preserved.) [5]

The PDF attachment that is referred to in the announcement above was also deleted from the SVR website. (Note to SVR: Same deletion advisory applies hereto.) [6]

I guess the only question that I might have for SVR at this point would be just how deep do they intend to dig this hole that they've gotten themselves into?

NOTE:Just like at SVR, VTCommons has deleted the incriminating poll items that I linked to from their website. Perhaps what they mean when they label themselves as "Vermont's statewide independent news journal" is that when a true fact becomes inconvenient, just disappear it from your archives.

Congrats to Rob Williams, publisher, for achieving a new low for independent journalism ethics.